{"id":220177,"date":"2018-01-20T19:50:34","date_gmt":"2018-01-20T17:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=220177"},"modified":"2018-01-20T19:50:34","modified_gmt":"2018-01-20T17:50:34","slug":"anc-leadership-agree-on-zuma-exit-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/220177\/anc-leadership-agree-on-zuma-exit-report\/","title":{"rendered":"ANC leadership agree on Zuma exit: report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The leadership of South Africa\u2019s ruling party decided that president Jacob Zuma must leave office but didn\u2019t set a time-frame for his exit, according to six senior party officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

The newly elected top six leaders of the party will manage the transition that will concentrate power in the hands of his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, who won control of the African National Congress a month ago, according to the officials, who are members of the ANC\u2019s National Executive Committee, which took the decision at a meeting near Pretoria, the capital, late Friday night.<\/p>\n

Zuma, whose scandal-ridden administration has dampened investor confidence in the South African economy and voter support for the ANC, could be removed in the next two weeks, enabling Ramaphosa to deliver the annual state-of the-nation address on Feb. 8, two of the officials said.<\/p>\n

The ANC leadership wants Zuma out as president before the start of campaigning for next year\u2019s general elections, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NEC agreed that the ANC must act decisively and with determination to rebuild the bond of trust between our people and the movement, restore the dignity of our movement, and reclaim the moral legitimacy of our movement,\u201d the party said in a statement Saturday.<\/p>\n

Further Talks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ramaphosa and other party officials \u201cwill continue their engagement with president Jacob Zuma to ensure effective coordination between the ANC and the government,\u201d it said, without confirming Zuma will step down.<\/p>\n

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa didn\u2019t immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Zuma\u2019s departure would enable Ramaphosa, 65, to take over as the nation\u2019s president and try to convince voters that he\u2019s committed to meeting his pledges to rebuild the battered economy and clamp down on the graft that\u2019s become synonymous with the Zuma era.<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa\u2019s Control<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was further evidence of Ramaphosa cementing control over the ANC at Friday\u2019s meeting, with his allies securing most seats on the party 26-member National Working Committee that oversees its running on a the day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n

The NEC also decided to suspend the ANC\u2019s provincial executive committees in the KwaZulu-Natal and Free State provinces, which were closely aligned to Zuma and were declared by the courts to have not been properly elected. Interim structures will run the party there until a new vote can be held.<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa, a lawyer and one of the wealthiest black South Africans, is widely expected to adopt more business-friendly policies and his election as ANC leader helped boost the rand 11% last month, the most among the world\u2019s major currencies.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s leading South Africa\u2019s delegation to the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos next week.<\/p>\n

Zuma\u2019s\u00a0second and final term was due to end around mid-2019. He survived two previous bids to topple him at NEC since November 2016, but the balance of power in the panel shifted after the elective conference in December.<\/p>\n

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Read: Rand hits key strength level as Zuma exit talk heats up<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The leadership of South Africa\u2019s ruling party decided that president Jacob Zuma must leave office but didn\u2019t set a time-frame for his exit, according to six senior party officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":190966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-220177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220179,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220177\/revisions\/220179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}